SlowManThis is merely a skills preservation program, an exercise intended to give European fighter jet engineers something to do.
I don’t think you will see NEURON in production.
SlowManNevertheless this figure sound to me a bit optimistic / too low. Is it possible that Aviation Week misunderstood in some way that terms of the contract and the contract does not yet include the radars, or the article is correct and each radar will cost just below $4 milion circa (that would be quite intersting)?
Thank you for any input on the matter
There is a price war going on between Raytheon and Grumman; Raytheon is particularly aggressive in pricing because they must win the Korean contest in order to stay in the F-16 AESA upgrade market. Koreans are said to prefer the Raytheon option over the Grumman option due to a better offset package.
The USAF prefers the Lockheed/Grumman combo, wish to see all the F-16 operators go to this single configuration to build the economy of scale, and has applied pressure to the Korean air force to adopt Grumman radar. But this pressure tactic isn’t working as the DAPA(Which is immune from the foreign pressures because it has no direct contacts with US state department and US DoD, only the vendors or US DoD FMS reps) decides the radar type, not the air force.
Raytheon in turn is trying to hold onto the Korean contract, because a loss in Korea would mean 0:3(USAF and Taiwan, which has no decision rights and will get the same vendor combo as the USAF version via the FMS), and would knock Raytheon out of future contests.
SlowManwell…….if the 35 turns out to be a……disappointing…….performer, I guess the Marines will have to take the lions share of the blame.
Indeed, the X-32 would have won if the marines weren’t so insistent on the X-35.
With the F-32, A/C and B are separate airframes, and F-32A/C would be entering the IOC by now regardless of what happened with the F-32B.
SlowManThe word “cruise” implies -sustained- ..speed. Or am I wrong there?
Supercruise is defined as an ability to sustain a supersonic speed without afterburner.
F-35 cannot supercruise, it will start decelerating once the afterburner is turned off.
SlowManIf youe mean the euro (which isn’t Europe’s currency, any more than the real is South America’s currency), then it losing value isn’t a problem. It saved a lot of exporters. The euro was great
But it is a bad news for the F-35, since the European countries will now have to pay more in Euro to buy the F-35 even if its price in USD was stable(Which it isn’t, rising at 10% a year).
The European countries will have no choice but to switch over to a more affordable fighter jet, which puts the F-35 in a death spiral.
SlowManI think that the F35 is a great innovation for the military. One of the first, if not the first, vertical takeoff jet fighter.
Huh? Never heard of the Harrier, the YAK-38, and the YAK-141(The ancestor of F-35)?
SlowManer, if ROKAF wants no single jet fighter, why bother talking about external loadouts?
Because the ROKAF doesn’t run the contest; the DAPA does. The ROKAF can only list its requirements and the DAPA buys the weapons needed by the armed services, and could modify the requirements as they see fit to get the best value for money.
So while the requirement of external armaments cannot by deleted, the requirement for twin engine can be deleted, and the original twin engine requirement was indeed deleted by the DAPA to bolster competition.
DAPA: if they had problems with lockheed, could be considered normal they don’t want to deal with them again, no?
Banning a bidder from open tenders requires a court conviction. The DAPA could disqualify a bidder in the middle of the process, but that could face a lawsuit from the disqualified bidder, so they prefer to just drag everybody along then announce the result.
Typhoon offset: just cosmetic management of numbers, I suspect. Would Eurofighter be asking more for the airframes or other items/services to offset the “gift” of an assembly plant? Somehow I think they would.
EADS is counting on 250 KFXs being built at this plant, as the FX winner is also automatically the KFX partner. This is why a Lockheed win is all but impossible, because Lockheed refused to participate in the KFX program and the finance ministry’s talking about running a cost analysis of the winning bidder’s KFX proposal next year, so the “winning bidder” can’t possibly be Lockheed.
SlowManThe pylons are already flying and if external carriage is required for Korea and is needed for 3I then LM/JPO can spend some extra money and make it happen. We are talking about 3-4 years from now so there is time if needed.
JPO won’t and can’t. JP cannot spend that extra money, and Lockheed Martin is hard pressed with the current testing schedule and cannot allocate resources to external ordinances testing.
I was under the impression supercruise wasn’t a feature for the F-35.
The supercruise isn’t a feature of the F-35 and Lockheed is not claiming supercruise.
What F-35 does, every other supersonic capable fighters do. What, you thought a jet would instantly fall back to subsonic speed once the pilot turns off AB?
SlowManThis is peculiar
They are talking about the fact that the Block 2 and 3 offered to Korea do not have external armament capability, that capability will not be introduced until Block 4 or later
What is happening is that the ROKAF doesn’t believe in stealth infiltration, but a stand-off strike with large quantity of stand-off weapons to suppress the enemy air defense in 3 days. This is why the ability to deliver large quantity of stand off munitions in 5~6 sorties a day is important, and it would cost a lot of money to modify Block 3 units to carry external armament of a sufficient weapons load, if possible at all.
SlowManClaims w/o sources = worthless
We are talking about a contest where only the F-35 was surrounded by a technical disqualification scandal, and the DAPA’s repeated threats to ban Lockheed as a vendor for its past conducts.
That should tell you that these guys don’t like the F-35 very much.
ROKAF : Hates the F-35 because it is a single engine jet. A big no no in Korea. So they made external armament mandatory and internal armament optional to put the F-35 at a disadvantage.
DAPA : Had many issues with Lockheed in the past, threatened to ban Lockheed from bidding over past bribery allegations.
Parliament : Wants the F-35 disqualified immediately because the Parliament’s annual $175 million noise compensation payment to residents nearby airbases more than double should the “noisy” F-35 be deployed.
President : Basically the only supporter of F-35 because he valued relations with the US. Unfortunately, the president has no decision right, only the approval/disapproval right, but he cannot disapprove this time because that means having to start the contest all over and the air force is begging for new jets to be delivered by 2016.
SlowManHere is where you and others continually fail. Just because it has not been publicly demonstrated, does not mean it cannot or has not happened.
Too bad evaluaters record what they observed, not what the vendor promised. This is why the F-35 received the lowest performance evaluation score of three.
btw, What is the external store that it has to fly m1.6 with?
That is classified, but must be 500 lbs class bombs and missiles. Basically it is for the supersonic dash before the weapons release then escape at full speed.
Considering that the F-35 can cruise at m1.2 then 1.6 should not be an issue with full AB and external stores.
That’s not what Lockheed promised.
SlowManTop scorer in each segment.
Performance : Silent Eagle
Price : Typhoon
Offset : Typhoon
I will give you a more detailed description of the evaluation result.
Performance
1. Silent Eagle : Flew the F-15E1 demonstrator, and the avionics in Israel. The ROKAF already knows what it is capable of.
2. Typhoon : Flown and pushed to the limits. Flew with heavy strike armament combination.
3. F-35 : It flew within the limitation currently imposed, so it reads “Vendor claims X, observed Y”. Accordingly the F-35 scored poorly in telemetry monitored performance areas and received no point in areas where Lockheed couldn’t or refused to test.
Price
1. Typhoon : This is interesting but the EADS CASA underbid Boeing.
2. Silent Eagle
3. F-35 : Lockheed provided pricing for only 2016 deliveries, and no prices thereafter, unlike others who offered fixed prices.
Offset
1. Typhoon : EADS CASA received 100% score for complying with all the requirments + extra point because of $1 billion local assembly plant offering paid for by the Eurofighter consortium.
2. Silent Eagle : Boeing received 100% score for full compliance.
3. F-35 : Lockheed received less than 50% score because it had no definite offset package, but a suggestion of vendor-financed optional industrial participation supplying wings, tails, and the rear box section. No avionics or anything of high technology. Furthermore, Lockheed offered to transfer only 21 out of 51 technologies requested. Other vendors offered to transfer all 51 requested.
SlowManKorea will not have to guess at anything as they will have the opportunity to fly alongside an F-35 while it verifies whatever spec they are concerned about.
So did the USAF demo fly the F-35 to Mach 1.6 with external armament?
That’s the ROKAF requirement, Mach 1.6 with an external armament(required), internal armament not required, hence the F-35 technical disqualification controversy since the F-35 cannot fly at Mach 1.6 with external armament.
If Korea was so dead-set against the F-35 they would not be asking LM to jump through so many hoops in order to evaluate it.
The F-35 is in the contest because of
1. The US government insistence.
2. Means to pressure Boeing and EADS into giving better terms and prices.
SlowManIn the Korean contest, the F-35 came out on top technically
F-35 faces technical disqualification controversy.
Top scorer in each segment.
Performance : Silent Eagle
Price : Typhoon
Offset : Typhoon
The F-35 ranked last in all three categories.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2843391/posts
F-35 may fail to meet key requirements (South Korea)
The Korea Times ^ | 02-07-2012 | Lee Tae-hoon
Posted on Tue Feb 07 2012 08:29:18 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by sukhoi-30mki[Exclusive] F-35 may fail to meet key requirements
By Lee Tae-hoon
The United States Air Force (USAF) variant of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 will likely fail to meet two of the Korean Air Force’s key requirements — the ability to carry weapons externally and fly at Mach 1.6 (1,930 kilometers per hour) or faster, an industry insider said Tuesday.
He pointed out that the Korean military has clearly outlined the two key features as compulsory requirements in its request for proposal (RFP) released Jan. 30.
“The maximum speed of the F-35 Lightning II, which is still under development, is Mach 1.6, the bare minimum the Air Force has stated as a mandatory requirement,” the insider familiar with the RFP said.
“The question is whether Lockheed Martin’s F-35 can prove itself to fly at such an ideal speed as advertised when a team of Air Force pilots test fly the aircraft later this year.”
The Air Force is scheduled to carry out testing and evaluations on the F-35 and its two rivals, Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle and EADS’s Typhoon, from June through September before announcing its selection in October.
The winner of the FX-III project, the third and final phase of Korea’s advanced fight jet procurement project, will deliver 60 high-end aircraft from 2016 for around 8.29 trillion won ($7.26 billion).
The industry source said the F-35, the only fifth generation stealth aircraft offered on the market, will most likely perform worse than Lockheed Martin has assured when the Air Force checks the U.S. defense giant’s latest multirole, single-engine aircraft.
“What is certain to happen is that the U.S. government will provide assurances to the Air Force that the F-35 will be able to fly at Mach 1.6 by overcoming all of the technical glitches and development problems by the time it is delivered to Korea,” the source said.
“Eventually, this will pave the way for Lockheed Martin, the favorite choice for the U.S. government, to get away with the compulsory requirement and win the FX-III bid. All the broken promises will only cost millions of dollars in penalties.”
Another industry insider pointed out that Lockheed Martin will be unlikely to complete its envisioned development of external pods and pylons for its latest stealth aircraft in time.
“Lockheed Martin has boasted that its aircraft is capable of carrying weapons not only internally, but also externally on its six external missile pylons,” he said. “But it will be physically impossible to complete the development of the external pylons by the time the F-35 is delivered to Korea.”
Randy Howard, Lockheed Martin’s director of the Korea F-35 Campaign, also acknowledged that the external carriage may come as an option for Korea.
“Lockheed Martin did not cancel it, the U.S. government prioritized it,” Howard said, explaining why doubts have been raised over the development of the F-35’s external hard points.
“The F-35 is designed to carry weapons internally. That’s what it does, and that’s why it is stealthy.”
He argued that the F-35’s primary attribute, the ability to penetrate into the enemy’s territory without being detected, will be significantly compromised if Korea chooses to mount weapons externally.
“If you carry weapons externally, you are not stealthy. That’s not normally how you are going to operate F-35s,” he said.
He did note that if Korea insists on the F-35 to have an external carriage, his company is willing to customize it.
“It is only a question of prioritization of weapon certification,” he argued.
“If there are requirements for the external carriage of different weapons, it is not a hard thing because all of the capabilities are there.”
Other industry officials, however, refuted Howard’s claim, saying the development of external pylons not only reduces the aircraft stealth capabilities, but also requires a fundamental change in the aircraft design, which the USAF is not willing to pay for.
SlowManKeep dreaming…
The issues are political and not related to the F-35’s abilities.
The Canadian controversy stems from the F-35’s cost, which affects everyone else, especially in Europe where the national governments are trying to cut defense spending and demilitarize in order to deal with ongoing European government debt crisis.
Had the F-35 been available for less than $100 million program cost, everything would be in smooth sailing today. But 42 F-35 cost Japan $10 billion, before the additional FACO and industrial participation cost.
Quite frankly I look forward to an open competition where the F-35 smokes all comers. It should be interesting when Boeing/Dassault, et al try and pitch a plane that is slightly cheaper yet woefully less capable.
The F-35 already got smoked by all comers in Korea’s open contest, where it ranked dead last by a wide score margin. The F-35 simply cannot win in open bid contests, and its only hopes are in non-bidding sales.
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